Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Why So Few? Contrast-Sensitivity Ability

The
2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University
Women (AAUW), profiles research by Dr. Shelley Correll on gender
differences in self-assessment, or how good you think you are at a
particular activity or subject. Dr. Correll is a sociologist at Stanford
University and finds that “boys do not pursue mathematical activities at a
higher rate than girls do because they are better at math. They do so, at least
partially, because they think they are better.”

Dr. Correll first became interested in gender
differences in self-assessment when she taught chemistry to high school
students. She realized that no matter how well the girls in her classes did,
she had trouble convincing them that they had any scientific ability. At the
same time, she found that no matter how poorly the boys in her classes did,
they continued to believe that they were very good at chemistry.

Once she went to graduate school, she delved
into this issue, analyzing a dataset from more than 16,000 high school students,
and found that, in fact, among students with similar past math achievement
girls assessed their mathematical abilities lower than boys did. In a lab
experiment on gender differences in self-assessment, Dr. Correll found that
women assess themselves as less competent in “male” fields, even when the
“male” field is fictitious.

The figure above
shows an example from this experiment. Subjects are
asked if this rectangle is more black or more white. As it turns out, it is not
actually important how much black or white there is (there are equal amounts). Dr.
Correll describes this fictitious ability to detect correct
proportions of black and white as “contrast-sensitivity ability.” When
participants in Group A were told that men were more likely to have high levels
of “contrast-sensitivity ability,” women assessed their contrast-sensitivity
ability lower than men did. When this ability was described as equally strong
in men and women to participants in Group B, gender differences in
self-assessment were not found. Dr. Correll’s results support the idea that
cultural beliefs about gender and not actual gender differences can influence
self-assessments and lead to girls’ and women’s lower assessment of their abilities
in fields labeled “male,” like STEM.

Not only do women rate their abilities lower
in so-called “male” fields, they also hold themselves to a higher standard
compared with men in these so-called “male” fields. In the same fictitious
skill of “contrast sensitivity,” students were asked, “How high would you have
to score to be convinced that you have high ability in this task?” In the group
where students were told that “men are better at this task,” women indicated
that they would have to earn at least 89% to think they had high ability in
that area. On the other hand, men thought that a score of 79% would indicate
high ability. That is a difference of 10 points! However, in the group where
students were told, “There is no gender difference in performance on this
task,” men and women had a much more similar idea of what score would indicate
high ability.

If you think about this finding as it relates
to math and science, fields in which men are considered to excel, it suggests
that girls believe that they have to be better in math and science than boys
believe they have to be in order to think of themselves as good in these
fields.

There are many elements to choosing a career,
but researchers agree that one element is believing that you can be successful
at it. Girls’ lower self-assessment of their math ability, even in the face of
good grades and test scores, along with their higher standard for performance
in “masculine” fields, helps to explain why fewer girls than boys aspire to
science and engineering careers.

So what can we do to help girls to more
accurately assess their abilities in math and science? Make performance
standards and expectations clear. When students have clear information from
teachers about what grade or score signifies good performance, they are less
likely to rely on stereotypes to assess their abilities. Also, girls are less
likely than boys are to interpret their academic successes in math and science
as an indication that they have the skills necessary to become a successful
engineer or computer scientist. Encourage girls to see their success in high
school math and science for what it is: not just a requirement for going to
college but also an indication that they have the skills to succeed in a whole
range of science and engineering professions.

Note: much of this text is from the AAUW pptdescribing highlights of the Why So Few? report.